


An Abundance of Words - FFXIVWrite 2020 Collection

by tehJai



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Doggy Style, Exhibitionism, Face-Sitting, Higher Education, Introspection, Multi, Nipple Play, Nudity, Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal Spoilers, Post-Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal, Semi-Public Sex, Shadowbringers Spoilers, Stubbed toes, Tumblr: FFXIVwrite2020, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, War flashbacks, anguished metaphors about love as a garden, astrology as a science, further anguished metaphors about love as what powers navigating by the stars, more tags to come, or at least a mention thereof, playing with hair, quotes, the glorious stresses of final exams
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:54:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 12,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26762410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tehJai/pseuds/tehJai
Summary: [WORK IN PROGRESS]The collection of my fills for FFXIVWrite2020, with the rough edges polished off and some expansion in places.None of these pieces constitute a contiguous story and may feature AU/future scenarios.  Several are NSFW, but will be indicated in the Table of Contents.Tags will be updated as the pieces go up!
Relationships: Urianger Augurelt/Warrior of Light
Comments: 61
Kudos: 18
Collections: Emet-Selch's Wholesomely Debauched Bookclub FFXIV-Writes 2020 Collection





	1. Table of Contents

Chapter 2: Crux - oblique Shadowbringers spoilers. Two astrologians who've met before meet again.

Chapter 3: Sway - set post Patch 5.3. There's an astrology student, and an astrology teacher, and they argue about theory versus practice.

Chapter 4: Muster - Tiona's first astrology lessons have her thinking about possibilities and the future. 

Chapter 5: Clinch - Keltgeim explains her astrology philosophy. Urianger still thinks she's weird about it. 

Chapter 6: Matter of Fact - In the midst of difficult homework, Urianger discovers that Tiona is good at mathematics. 

Chapter 7: Nonagenarian - Keltgeim and Urianger unexpectedly learn about viera lifespans.

Chapter 8: Clamor - Shadowbringers/5.3 spoilers. A haiku about the Ancients and the Final Days.

Chapter 9: Lush (NSFW) - Tiona thinks about what might come to pass, and then it does.

Chapter 10: Avail - Shadowbringers/5.3 Spoilers. A haiku about helpful wishes, made with all your heart.

Chapter 11: Ultracrepidarian - In an Alternate Universe where Eorzea chooses to go to the moon and do the other things, several characters wonder about the possibilities of flight.

Chapter 12: Tooth and Nail - Keltgeim doesn't want to go to Coerthas, but Urianger would REALLY like to use the big astroscope.

Chapter 13: Part - Keltgeim won't pull strings to get Urianger some time on the astroscope, but Tiona will, at great risk to herself.

Chapter 14: Ache (NSFW) - Tiona is a klutz.

Chapter 15: Lucubration - A haiku about a certain elezen and his billion-gil vocabulary.

Chapter 16: Fade - Tiona, too, is long-lived, and muses on how difficult it can be over time to remember.

Chapter 17: Panglossian - A quote from a hero.

Chapter 18: Where The Heart Is - Shadowbringers/5.3 Spoiler. Tiona finally has a place that is special to her, but now it lacks the most special thing of all.

Chapter 19: Foibles - Tiona wants to tell Urianger something weird during exam week.

Chapter 20: Argy-bargy - Haiku. The astrologians are arguing once more.

Chapter 21: Shuffle (NSFW) - Urianger elects to have the other kind of dessert by way of stress relief.


	2. Crux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oblique Shadowbringers spoilers. Two astrologians who've met before meet again. Set after 5.3/my Lepus series.

The skywatchers were right for once, Tiona realized with glee – the skies were clear, the moon was in its new phase and the entire sky opened up above her, a glittering carpet of billions of stars across an inky sky.

Having lived in the jungle for as long as she had, it had always been difficult to see the expanse of the sky, and since she’d arrived in Eorzea, she had spent more time under big skies and sweeping vistas than under trees. 

The stars were fascinating, and if what Urianger had told her was at all correct, they held their own magicks and could be used to predict events and destinies of the future. Fate. Admittedly, the rava had just enough innate aetheric ability to push her aether into her gunblade’s ammunition, but hadn’t really gone any further with it. She figured herself to be clever enough for it, but the different vocabularies and writing systems made _learning_ in Eorzea a challenge on par with everything she had done in the First (albeit one a lot less hazardous to one’s soul – though she was certain the effect on her sanity would probably have been equal). She was not an uneducated viera; she had learned her discipline back in Dalmasca, with Rabanastran combat instructors and tacticians. It was possible that she had read just as many after-action reports and accounts of battle as any of the Scions had read academic tomes about aether and magic.

Nonetheless, the stars were _fascinating_. She looked a little toward the east, and saw an arrangement of pale-blue giants arranged in a cross, and a memory seemed to spark in her head, apparently out of nowhere –

It was a constellation used back in the jungle, as its declination was so high and its stars so bright that even the rava viera in Golmore learned how to navigate by it.

 _Crux_.

“So I know,” she said after about a minute staring at the sky while she stood in the front yard of a very tall house with odd Ishgardian stylings considering its location in the suburbs of Ul’dah, “that you probably think this is a waste of our time.” Urianger offered a shrug. “If nothing else, ‘tis a fortunate exercise in putting myself back to rights after my long time in… stasis. The _aches_ hath lessened, to be sure.” The normally-graceful elezen still moved just a little slowly, it having been less than a sennight since his arrival back on the Source. “The activity alone hath made this a worthwhile journey.”

“Good. I hope I can make it worth just more than a walk to stretch your legs, though.” She took a step forward to square herself in front of the door, and she knocked. “I rent a room here, and I know _some_ of the inhabitants, and I know _one_ of them is kind of a big-deal astrologian. Maybe you’ll find use in a meeting.”

He turned, slowly and deliberately, to eyeball the carbon-and-brass free-rotating astroscope that stood in the yard adjacent to a chocobo stable. Urianger was relatively new to astrology, having only begun his studies of it while on the First, but even he could recognize the instrument as not something that one could purchase from a shop. It was the sort of thing that someone with a commitment to observation would have _commissioned_ , and possibly for millions of gil.

It was this instrument that he was looking at, rubbing his chin thoughtfully and murmuring “Perhaps,” under his breath, when the door opened and the light from the inside was dwarfed by the form of a very tall individual. The sudden flash tore his attention away from the astroscope, and he moved to politely greet whoever was answering the door –

Red hair. Slate skin. Golden eyes even paler than his that widened in recognition. Surely the cosmos were _telling_ him something and this couldn’t have been a coincidence. He had had dreams when on the First, speaking to someone about the complexities of the universe. She had gone on and on at length about the intersection of space and the intersection of time and had _claimed_ that she had pushed the aether of her soul through the myriad of stars and had called out, waiting for someone to answer. She had _claimed_ that somehow, despite his relative lack of knowledge, he had been able to do the same with at least a part of himself arrive wherever it was between worlds and they would speak for hours as he slept –

Tiona, beside him, made a friendly gesture to the figure at the door, opening her mouth to offer introductions when –

“You.” The slate-skinned, redheaded roegadyn sounded dour and grumpy but there was the barest hint of a smile on her face.

Urianger blinked. “By the _Twelve_ ,” he said, stepping forward, “thine insinuations were _valid._ ”

“I, ah – Keltgeim, Urianger – you two know each other?” Tiona, for her part, looked between the elezen and roegadyn, face frozen in utter bafflement at the fact that recognition between the two seemed immediate.

“Aye,” said Keltgeim Eyristyrwyn, the roegadyn. “I knows this idiot. Looks like he figured out how to get hisself home. What can I do fer ye?”

“Tiona hath advised me,” Urianger said carefully, trying not to bristle at the insult, “as to the nature of thy studies. Thou art very well-recommended as an expert on the stars.”

Keltgeim folded her arms over her plain red shirt – Urianger noticed that she didn’t exactly _dress_ like a sorceress or a scholar, just an every day shirt and an every day pair of kecks – and raised an eyebrow in Tiona’s direction. “So yer flatterin’ me an’ sayin’ that figurin’ I’m gonna, what, teach him?”

Tiona cleared her throat and offered a broad, vivid smile, showing off her white teeth. “Maybe?”

“I ain’t a miracle worker. I ain’t able t’fix stupid.” She turned her eyes on Urianger once more. “But I guess I gotta admit that ye found me, an’ that counts fer somethin’. An’ since yer girlfriend referred ye, I guess she’ll have t’come along, too.”

The viera’s ears stood straight up in the air and her eyes went wide, face falling. “Ah, no, no, I can’t _read_ the textbooks. I was just going to have him room with me and –”

“Who said a damn word about _readin_ ’? Hurry up an’ consider it, an’ if the two of ye proves that ye ain’t stunned as me arse… well… we’ll take it as it comes, aye?”

It was another one of those extremely rare circumstances where Urianger found himself with not much to say as he stood face-to-face with his only chance to learn more of the practice he’d recently taken up that didn’t involve the threat of assassination in Sharlayan or hypothermia in Ishgard.

“I am not wont to walk away from such a grand opportunity,” he said carefully, staring intently into Keltgeim’s freckled face. “Rest assured we shall _both_ work to the best of our abilities.”

The roegadyn nodded. “Fine. C’mon in.”


	3. Sway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set post Patch 5.3. There's an astrology student, and an astrology teacher, and they argue about theory versus practice.

“Surely thou canst not mean to insinuate that there exists something _beyond_ aether.” 

“That’s exactly what I mean. Here, look –” and Keltgeim’s accent, muted and mumbled and Limsan, made the word sound like ‘ _luh_ ’ and there was a petty part of Urianger’s mind that would have taken a sort of schoolyard pleasure in mocking it.

Keltgeim was animated, grinning down at the stacks of parchments and tomes and scrolls that she had laid out on the desk of her office: each with notations, equations, astrological observations, at least sixteen rejected requests for astroscope time at the First Dicasterial Observatorium of Aetherial and Astrological Phenomena (he noticed _one_ such request, approved, and with the stamp and signature of _the Lord Commander of the Temple Knights_ , framed and affixed to one of the walls), and several _assertions_ about the nature of the world – nay, the _universe_ , and he wondered just what he’d gotten himself into.

A few sheets of parchment were waved under his nose; and he recognized it as the abstract of a dissertation. “Thing is,” she said, “I’ve presented this equation t’every aetherologist who comes through th’gate o’ the Arcanist Guild back home in Limsa, an’ ain’t nobody who can mathematically exclude me theory with any o’ the present models. I keep tryna present it t’Ishgard but I s’pose they figures it for some pretty heavy _heresy_ – can you do that math?”

Urianger flicked back and forth between the pages, golden eyes scanning the text with the instantaneous focus and speed of the career student. “‘Tis a dramatic and fundamental assertion that thou makest – in what ways wouldst this mysterious _thing_ thou hast conjured from thy mathematics _actually_ manifest upon our star and with effects seen not merely through calculation, but observation?”

He couldn’t help but push back – even if, as both the abstract and Keltgeim herself were insisting, the calculations were found to potentially explain several aetherial phenomena (“thereby proving the need for the regular use and adaptation of the methods that the astrologians of Ishgard have used for generations”) and showed no signs of contradiction or interference with either conjury, thaumaturgy, and the applied combinations of both.

The roegadyn _huffed._ “You are _such_ a swivin’ Sharlayan. Okay, y’know the spell _Gravity_?”

He’d learned astrology from _books_ ; for most of his time on the First there weren’t any stars for him to see, even if he could intuit and utilize their aether. “Hardly one I was able to master, but I know _of_ it.”

“Gods above, you _are_ an idiot. Come with me.” Just like that she was half-jogging out of her office and down the hall, and Urianger bade his still-stiff body to move, _quickly_ , before she found another thing to sling a childish insult at him about.

Even if all her theorizing was right, he mused as he laid the papers down on her desk and rose to follow her, walking as briskly as he could manage, even _if_ what she was saying was true, that there was some sort of matter that aether was comprised of that could be quantified, it was such a shockingly novel idea that he _knew_ it wouldn’t gain traction. Gods knew the Sharlayans would have her head for it, regardless of how true the myriad of equations and proofs had made it appear.

Brows furrowed thoughtfully, he followed Keltgeim into the yard, raising his hand to greet Tiona, who was hunched over the yard astroscope and dutifully taking notes on her observations, and then –

He was lifted, suddenly but not violently, into a pocket of shimmering air swirling around a gleaming black singularity. If his would-be teacher was telling him anything he could not hear it over the thrumming of both the air and aether around him both. Through the spell’s effects he could _see_ her, however, not even armed with a _card_ much less an _armillary_ , her strong arms and hands gesturing to _pull_ the spell –

He was a quick enough study, and had remembered enough from her abstract, to see that this truly was a practical application, and the words, written in the stiff language of scientific papers, popped into his head:

 _We thus assert that aether is composed of some discrete unit; and that manipulation of aether is merely an indicator of the discrete unit absorbing or releasing energies of a certain aspect under specific conditions. It is therefore possible to adjust aetheric manipulation techniques upon the casting of a spell to_ change _said spell; for example, enabling a previously static effect to be moved or otherwise amplified._

“Oh,” said Tiona suddenly as Urianger sailed gently across the yard borne on Keltgeim’s spell and was deposited directly beside her. “Did you argue with her?”

“My dear, I would hardly call asking Mistress Keltgeim to _prove_ her assertions an _argument_. Nonetheless –”

He looked back over his shoulder, to Keltgeim standing in the yard, hands on her hips and laughing, shouting _something_ about how she proved herself right _again_ to yet _another_ Sharlayan son-of-a-bitch. 

“Nonetheless, I do believe she hath convinced me of the merit of her ideas.”


	4. Muster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tiona's first astrology lessons have her thinking about possibilities and the future.

The routine she’d settled into after she’d brought Urianger to the adventuring hall in the Ul'dahn suburbs turned out to be an oddly soothing one for Tiona.

Ostensibly, the rava was Keltgeim’s second astrology student, and doubtless soon something practical or useful would be learned, but at this point in her education, once the sun was down and the sky was dark and the moon had risen, she was out the door and peering through the astroscope in the yard, or climbing onto the roof to gain a better vantage point of the sky on the clearest of nights. She was atop the tall timbered house now, lying on her back above the stars, one hand palm-up toward the sky, angled toward where The Balance hung in the sky, a jagged line of fat red giants that seemed to line up with her fingertips if she held them just right.

Tiona wondered, at times, about the night sky. Was it the rift between worlds? Was it a font of special cosmic aether and the source of Ancient magics? 

According to Professor Eyristyrwyn (Tiona found that she _had_ to refer to the roegadyn as such when thinking of her as a teacher; the rava was trying very hard to be impartial in all of this, despite the _bickering_ that went on between her teacher and her lover), the goal was to be able to immediately locate each of the six constellations that the astrologians worked with, and from there to immediately establish a position relative to the moon, and to be able to do it within a handful of seconds’ worth of sky-scanning. A basic skill to learn, one that did not rely too heavily on Tiona’s shaky reading skills but did seem to take advantage of her observational and rote-memorization skills. 

(Though she’d seen some of the _math_ that Urianger was being made to do – that was a little more her speed, but she was dead in the water with regards to studying up on the _context_ for all those proofs and theorems and matrices, and so she’d taken to simply checking his work in the early mornings when she inevitably woke up much earlier than he.)

Tiona wondered, at times, if the individual stars each had names of their own. What exactly made them glow and twinkle and move about the heavens? How far away were they? 

All this time spent watching the sky left her mind free to wander along tangents related to the stars, and her mind often went to strange, ludicrous places. Tonight, it seemed, was no different. The connection between the glimmer and beauty of the night sky to a deck of silly-looking cards and whatever in all the hells that round, spinny thing was meant to be was still something she couldn’t quite piece together, but she certainly felt a sort of inherent _awe_ about the stars. They seemed so eternal, as though they would last forever and always be there as a permanent reminder of her location in the world. There was awe, but also familiarity, as though something _about_ them, or maybe some _part_ of them, existed in her very being.

(She’d found The Balance, which if she remembered correctly, meant that the Bole would be low on the horizon and a little to her left, marking the western portion of the sky at this time of night. The patterns were easy to discern; the first few sennights of careful observation and sketching and tracking had laid them out for her, and if she was patient enough, all of the stars would eventually appear above her like green troops lining up for muster.)

Tiona wondered, at times, if the night sky was a place to be explored. Could the people of a world fly that high? How would it be done?

(She imagined all at once a very strange thing: a gleaming black and white magitek engine, powered by gods-knew-what, with people in a cockpit at its very tip, streaking across the heavens to find whatever lay beyond.)


	5. Clinch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keltgeim explains her astrology philosophy. Urianger still thinks she's weird about it.

“So what I’m doin’ is just tweakin’ th’ aether real quick between two o’ them aspected states. You probably felt not one big push, but a series of small ones, aye?”

“Indeed. But it is not yet clear _how_ thou knowest what effects to impart upon thy spells.”

“Well, ain’t it true that magic an’ spellcraft is half math and half gut-feelin’? Tha’s how I knows.I tries th’ spell, feels it out, and eventually it’s just as natural as putin’ out a _Helios_.”

“Aye. But thou still hast not explained how this fits into the schema of astrology. Nothing is said of thy implements – the armillary, the card, the twining of fates –”

“Is that what you think we’re harnessin’? Fate? I guess you might _call_ it that, but I think tha’s just a word ancient folks come up with t’explain shite they might not understand. What we do – we’re takin’ the innate powers o’ creation – not some kind of magic known by this or that civilization from ages ago, I means the _actual_ powers of creation what birthed th’universe. Aether is aether is aether, but when we pulls it from the stars, we’re bringin’ along with it a feelin’ of somethin’ that predates man. Hells, it might even predate _this_ very star itself.”

“Thou hast rather odd notions of thy discipline.”

“I gets that a lot. I figures anyone who’d seek me out fer studies is either brilliant or a fool.”

“And which am I?”

“You ain’t run off yet, so I figures that clinches you as the former.”


	6. Matter of Fact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the midst of difficult homework, Urianger discovers that Tiona is good at mathematics.

Tiona was _not_ , she decided one afternoon as soon as she finished the homework that Keltgeim had set for her – to read a short astrology paper originally published in Sharlayan; it had taken her the better part of a day-and-a-half but she had learned about why it was called _malefic_ – going to be that sort of attention-demanding hangabout of a partner that she had seen in the back alleys of Ul’dah the other day.

It clearly wasn’t that she was kicking around and doing _nothing_ while the astrologians bickered and studied and learned. She, too, was a curious creature, no more or less so than the other residents of the adventurers’ hall, but her limitations and inexperience meant that she could learn _plenty_ over the course of a sennight with maybe ten bells’ worth of marked effort. Her lessons were short, given orally, and when she _was_ given something to read, it was always markedly shorter than the vast tomes she’d watched the others pore over.

The page-flipping and tome-poring took up a _lot_ of free time.

All the while, poor Urianger was on his third full day of _his_ assignment to show complete mathematical proofs for all of their teacher’s theories. Tiona was familiar with the thousand-yard-stare, the slight bags under the eyes and the mental _exhaustion_ that academic work entailed. She’d seen the equations and could likely solve them (if there was a universal language, it was the realm of mathematics; as such, the equations were long and entirely made of variables, but she could intuit what they were trying to predict.), even if this sennight’s assignment was apparently for him to calculate the age of the universe.

And that was why she’d tried quietly reading on the bed, but after awhile the intense _silence_ that was Urianger at work, interrupted only by the occasional frustrated grunt, began to get the better of her.

And so – _carefully_ – she approached him where he was hunched over the table, surrounded by completed sheets and about six mugs of mostly-cold tea, and reached to place a hand on his shoulder.

She didn’t want to be _annoying_ him, or a distraction, but she _did_ want to check in.

He reached across himself to place his hand atop hers and then squeeze. Hard.

“How’s it going?” she inquired, her voice soft.

“‘Tis not an impossible endeavour, my bright star,” he said with a weary sigh, “merely a long one. I feel I am most of the way through – and Mistress Keltgeim, it seems, hath the right of it. There _must_ be a discrete unit of aether and it _must_ have originated at some point in space and time…” He let out a dry chuckle and shook his head. “Though – enough of mine own difficulties. How dost _thou_ fare?”

Stepping forward with a grin, Tiona pressed herself against Urianger’s back, lowering her hand from his shoulder and replacing it with her chin, looking over the proof page. “If I told you I was done with my homework,” she said, leaning her head toward his such that she nuzzled at the shell of his ear, “would you be mad at me?”

That had him grinning and laughing outright. “Never. As thou hast said before, thou art a relative novice in comparison. But a quick learner, it would seem.”

The rava snorted. “I’m _foreign_ ,” she laughed, “but not stupid.” Then, she reached out with a finger to point something out on his proof page. “This derivative should be taken within a known limit. Otherwise, the result will come out as a value to the power of _infinity_ and that –”

“– resulteth in mine entire list of suppositions being made incorrect.” Urianger rubbed thoughtfully at his chin, glancing over at Tiona, who had tilted her head in the other direction and whose red eyes were scanning his page. “I thank thee for thine assistance. I did not realize…”

“That I’m pretty good at maths?”

“Indeed. Could I trouble thee for thine assistance?”

She _beamed_ at him, while moving to get the abandoned teacups in the kitchen sink and to begin brewing a new pot of tea. “Only if we go get food when we’re done.”

“Very well.”


	7. Nonagenarian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keltgeim and Urianger unexpectedly learn about viera lifespans.

The arguments between the astrologians - Tiona realized after they’d had five or six of them - were gradually becoming less and less peppered with insults (although Keltgeim calling Urianger a “pointy eared ponce” and Urianger responding without taking a breath to call Keltgeim in return a “wayward, hedge-born fustilarian” had been one of the highlights of the past fortnight, she had to admit) and were slowly starting to become a bit more on the social, good-natured scientific bantering side.

And tonight, they were drinking. 

Keltgeim, as befitted her Limsan nature, was six mugs of ale deep and both Tiona and Urianger watched politely, only slightly buzzed off of the extra-large bottle of mead they were splitting and thus far only halfway through. The roegadyn just kept on...speaking, her accent getting more and more muddled and less comprehensible as she went, moving from topic to topic with such alacrity that neither the rava nor the elezen had a window of opportunity to interrupt.

The waving of her large, slate-coloured limbs and the flash of her white teeth as she rambled was quite hypnotic.

“... and I mean, I ain’t _that_ old,” Keltgeim said, looking expectantly at the two.

Tiona took a slow sip from her mug. “D’you want me to guess?”

“Aye.” Keltgeim tilted her head and spent a moment looking very pleased with herself.

Fingertip to her chin, nose twitching as she pondered, Tiona offered Keltgeim a very large smile. “You’ve got to be at _least_ ninety. You’re young, but not that –”

“In what godsdamned universe do you figure me t’be _ninety years old?_ ” The roegadyn sounded very offended and Tiona pinned her ears back against her head by way of a submissive gesture, as though Keltgeim would at all realize that it meant _please don’t hurt me_.

“...A hundred?” Now she was wincing, cowering into her cup and _trying_ to scoot her chair over to duck behind Urianger, who merely put out one long leg to stop her from doing so, a smug grin on his face.

_Traitor._

“What?” It might have been the drink, but at this point Keltgeim’s face was ruddy with a blush.

“What? Ninety to a hundred. A young adult.” Ears still pinned back, Tiona scrambled to perch on her chair, both her feet flat upon it as she squatted there, ready to make a quick exit if needed. Keltgeim was gorgeous and imposing and more than a little intimidating.

“What the hell kind of place do _you_ hail from where people get that old?”

Tiona shrugged. “I mean, I’m a hundred and seventy-five, and I’m a little more than halfway through my life…”

“ _What_.”

The two women rounded on Urianger, who was frozen in his seat with his leg still splayed out and was staring into his own mug with wide eyes.

Tiona took a small sip from her mug. “What d’you mean _what_.”

“Thou art… how old?”

“A hundred and seventy-five. I thought you knew.”

“Wherefore didst thou not _advise_ me of this?”

“You never asked. Does it matter?”

He looked at her rather appraisingly for a few long, tense seconds, scanning her form from her feet to the tips of her ears, and his smug smile never faltered - and maybe Tiona herself was drunker than she thought about it all but if he kept looking at her _like that_ for too much longer, she’d call quits on the whole party and drag him off to bed –

“Nay,” he said simply. “Though, it must needs be remarked that thou art immensely beautiful for a being of thine… advanced age.”

He was never, not once, not _ever_ going to let her live this down. And for tonight, anyway, he was never, not once, not ever going to get laid.


	8. Clamor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shadowbringers/5.3 spoilers. A haiku about the Ancients and the Final Days.

The Sound frightens us

Besieged, alone, powerless

Walls crumble; we die


	9. Lush (NSFW)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tiona thinks about what might come to pass, and then it does.

Tiona was holding the tail-end of a comb in her mouth and breathing steadily through her nose, which was twitching extra-fast at the onslaught of lavender and rosemary perfumes, with the tangy undercurrent of lye and surfactants. Her hands were bare, and despite the fact that so too was Urianger, freshly scrubbed from a bath, she was trying _very_ hard to keep them running through his long, damp hair. She had to tell herself quite firmly to keep her hands _away_ from his broad shoulders and long, toned arms, and to only touch the muscled plane of his back as was needed for what it was she was about to do.

And she definitely, _absolutely_ had to repeat to herself like a mantra: _do not acknowledge that he’s sitting naked on the windowsill with you And the window is open. Do not think about what an opportunity this is. The mission comes first._

__

__

The rava gave a great sniff – oh, she would _remember_ these scents, so different from what she’d first smelled off of the elezen when they were all living on the First ( _do not think about the way the pollen in Il Mheg smelled when we found out that the stories about it were not myths and fucked all night in the meadow_ ) – and cleared her throat, plucking the comb from her mouth. “You know, I never figured you’d grow your hair.”

She set the comb to the side and kept combing her fingers through the silvery-blonde strands. The man had _hair –_ by now it was just past his shoulders – that was to be certain, but it was _fine_ , and prone to tangling. They’d already been here with the comb for half a bell. The sun was starting to set, and the nighttime chill of the desert was beginning to hang in the air. A quiet evening.

 _Do not acknowledge that you’d_ really _like to put yourself into his lap_ , her mind continued. _Do not think about your beautiful lover’s beautiful prick and all the things you could do to it, with the added bonus of_ maybe _one of these Ul’dahn suburbanites being able to see._

“Wherefore didst thou come to believe this?” Urianger’s face wasn’t visible, but she could _hear_ the smile in his voice. “Thou hast seen that I am no stranger to changing mine appearance.” And then he chuckled, looking over his shoulder, but immediately Tiona tutted at him, lifting a hand and using it to turn his face away and forward again. “The truth of the matter is that I merely did not care to expend much energy seeking out an aesthetician.”

“You’re just so particular about your beard, and your –” _Do_ not _think about how well-groomed he is down there._ “ – appearance. I just assumed that you liked to keep your hair a certain way.” By now she’d parted his hair into the requisite number of sections, and, keeping each of his bountiful, lush strands separated between her fingers, she began to expertly twist and overlap them together, and the beginnings of an elegant braid gradually took shape. “And your shampoo smells like a jungle.”

“It meeteth with thine approval, then? I am well aware of thy keen sense of smell. I imagine thou wouldst fain my scent be pleasant.” He started to turn his head again – it was endearing that he took her idiosyncrasies into account and that he preferred to look her in the eyes when he spoke to her, but it was _not_ making the braid in his hair any easier to craft.

More tutting and Tiona used her _forearm_ this time to turn his head back. “Stop squirming. And yes, it does.” ( _Do not tell him that if he’s going to squirm, he better be doing it when he’s between your legs.)_

“Excellent. In all honesty, I did not expect thee to providest me with _hairstyling services_. It seemeth an odd skill for a soldier to have.”

The rava snorted a little, her hands still methodically twining his hair together. She was trying to build the braid from the top of his head; however, the pieces of hair that framed his face were still short in comparison, and they ended up getting twisted out of the style as she added more strands to it. “You’d be surprised. Braids are quick, they stay in place. Every soldier who had long hair braided it.”

“And didst _thou_?”

“What, have long hair?” She actually paused her work and sat up from the windowsill a bit to look into his face, watching the warm smile that bloomed across his face when he saw her, and his almost imperceptible nod. ( _Do not think about what his face looks like when he comes inside you. Or the look he gives you once he comes back to reality. Do. Not._ ) “I did, for a time, yes. And I would braid it.”

“I regret not having the chance to lay mine eyes upon the sight of thee as such a long-haired jungle warrior,” he replied, a melodramatic-for-effect lilt in his voice.

Tiona threw her head back and laughed, the movements of her fingers coming quicker as she made her way toward the end of his hair. “Oh gods no, I doubt I’ll _ever_ grow out my hair again. I have too much, and I can’t do a _thing_ with it. Yours is so fine, though – once it’s combed out, it’s real easy to – “ and with that she was done, tying a simple black ribbon at the end of the braid. “There. See?” Mission accomplished.

“Ah.” This time, when Urianger turned to face her and smile, she didn’t bother to stop him. “As ever, I thank thee for thy consideration.” The kiss he gave her by way of thanks was warm and chaste, but her response was definitely _not_ ; she lurched forward in return, a growl in the back of her throat.

She rested his hands on his chest when she realized he was not pulling away, but then pulled away suddenly herself, smiling apologetically. “Forgive me, I shouldn’t have assumed you’d want to–”

“My dear,” his voice was _low_ , and she finally realized that he was red in the face, “thou mayest _always_ assume.”

(Do _think about how lucky you are to have him._ )

"Gods, Uri, could we do this _here_?" She gestured at the open window. By now it was well past dusk and absolutely nobody was walking in the neighbourhood. That was, however, hardly the point. "We don't even need to close the window." ( _Think about how good it will feel to have him upon you, so wonderfully_ exposed _and_ vulnerable –)

His eyes went wide, his blush now spreading to the tips of his nose and ears, but the smile that fell across his face was not a plaintive one meant to cover up shock or disdain. Instead it was wicked, enthusiastic – a clear indication that the idea appealed to him. That he was entirely nude and she could see he was _already_ half-hard. 

And then he _laughed_ , a deep, staccato sound that seemed to speak to the basest parts of her. ( _Think about what it’s going to sound like when he’s inside of you, what he might say in that smooth, liquid voice of his, and how wet it’ll make you.)_

"Thou truly art… adventurous," he remarked, his hands already reaching for the waistband of her pants, only to laugh again as he pulled them away and found not smallclothes, but merely the fine blue thatch of hair between her lusciously powerful thighs. "...and thou wert _prepared_ for this eventuality."

Her cheeks darkened at the feel of his fingertips against her skin, nimble and soft and _so close_ to where she was _burning_ on the inside. When Urianger let her go in order to get to his feet, she couldn't help but let out a moan. Tiona rearranged herself on the seat built into the sill; the window was open and falling unceremoniously into the yard was _not_ the type of adventure she was after. She found herself flustered at her arousal and unsure of the logistics of it all, and _thrilled_ that he seemed to want to go along with it. 

And then she paused. "You haven't exactly said _yes_ yet." ( _Think about the fact that he probably wants you as badly as you want him; that someone like him would throw propriety to the side just to have you.)_

The elezen laughed heartily. She would never do something – not even something as spontaneous as this – without his express agreement. "Yes, my bright star," he said fondly. "I shall take thee _here–_ such that all may see and may envy us. _"_

__

__

Her eyes went wide and for a few tense, silent seconds, she simply _stared_ at him. ( _Think about what he just said._ )

Urianger had been watching her move about on the windowsill, but now shook his head, and tugged at her wrist to get her to stand with him. Once Tiona was facing him, he quickly moved to strip her down, nimble fingers doing away with her top with ease. They then circled her shoulders, ran down her sides and back up again, to gently fondle at her breasts, stroking and squeezing and rolling until her nipples were taut and she threw her arms around him. Head pitched forward onto his shoulder, she sobbed against his neck as his delicate, insistent touch brought her perilously close to climax, but slowed and stilled until the pleasurable levin inside her began to recede. 

( _Think about how he reads you just as easily as one of his old-fashioned tomes, that he knows how far he can bring you with just touching you like that and how_ good _it feels._ )

"You're a _tease_ –" And now _she_ was the one squirming, but her complaint was cut short when he chuckled again, pulling away slightly to turn her round such that she faced the window. 

"I prefer to believe," he said, embracing her from behind and rocking his hips such that his burgeoning erection rubbed against the soft fur of her tail (and she gasped at the way the sensation just added to the fire within), "that I am providing thee with adequate time to prepare thyself for what thou hast asked of me." His grin was wide, excited, and he placed a gentle kiss on her shoulders, the side of her neck– 

And then he bent her over the bench and slammed his prick into her decisively. It caught Tiona by surprise and she grabbed onto the edge of the window to steady herself, gasping at the sensation of being so suddenly filled. 

( _Think about –_ ) The velvety, insistent heat of his prick snapped her mind straight out of _thinking_ and into the present. "Gods _yes_ ," she growled, shuddering as he grabbed hold of her tail with one hand, stepping forward and whispering at her to kneel atop the bench, and then gently _forcing_ her compliance with a slight squeeze. 

Tiona found it shocking how pleasurable the whole scenario was, shivering visibly in place with his prick still hilted inside of her. This was _new_. Urianger was surprisingly gentle in how he manhandled her – but his actions were neither meek nor vague. He was not hurting her in any way, but he was most assuredly putting her exactly where he wanted her to be.

"Thou art _visible–_ and so damnably _tight,_ " he whispered, bending down so that his chest pressed against her back, and his next words were growled straight into her ear, “and thus I must ask thee – what now?”

He was maddeningly still within her, the only sensation the dull throb of his prick. It was not enough to quell the flames within her; rather, it only served to stoke them further. At the sound of his words, though, she wriggled against him, a growl forming in the back of her throat. "I asked, so what," she gasped, "do you think?"

There was a playful lilt in Urianger's voice. Grinning broadly, he stood up straight, leaving her bent before him. "Ah, as ever, my bright star, I would fain hear you _say_ it aloud, in its entirety." Shifting on his feet, he gently tugged on her tail, causing her to let out a surprised squeak. 

Then Tiona was trembling, but not from pent-up tension– she was laughing, ducking her head and snickering, but then straightened back up and turned her head to look him in the eye. "Stop being a smart-ass and get on with it already."

He shivered under her gaze, the gold of his eyes now dark and smoldering, but barely visible alongside his dilated pupils. "Thou wish'st to be _fucked_?" The grin on his face, however, did not abate. 

Suddenly all the tension was _there_ again, loud buzzing in her large ears. Her legs began to shake, threatening to come out from under her, and she felt his hands brace against her hips, his stance widening to hold her in place. She turned back to the windowsill, bowing her head. " _Yes._ " 

( _Think about it._ )


	10. Avail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shadowbringers/5.3 Spoilers. A haiku about helpful wishes, made with all your heart.

blink at a sunrise

a wish as strong as steel

stand, and fight again


	11. Ultracrepidarian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In an Alternate Universe where Eorzea chooses to go to the moon and do the other things, several characters wonder about the possibilities of flight.

Everyone in the Program, upon its inception, had picked up _everything_ and moved immediately to Ala Mhigo, and as such the once-bombed-out apartment blocks had been renovated into quarters for the engineers, controllers, and pilots all.

Half the people from the old adventurers’ hall in Ul’dah were Tiona’s neighbours again: Keltgeim was the lead flight director, heading up the management and procedures for control of the craft (and she had strong-armed Urianger into working under her as the guidance, control and navigation officer), Synnove was working alongside Keltgeim as the flight dynamics officer, and Tiona herself was one of two dozen individuals who were either very brave, or _very_ crazy, and had volunteered to be a _pilot_ when Ala Mhigo had stepped forward out of its relative silence in international politics to declare their intent to build a machine to travel to the moon.

“I heard the engines keep misfiring,” Keltgeim was saying one afternoon on their day off, as they all congregated on the roof of the apartment block to grill meat and drink beer. “If they can’t get the launcher to _work–_ ”

“Then either they fix it,” Tiona said, a skewer of roast fowl in each hand, “or we won’t get off the _ground_ much less up to the moon. Synnove, you know the guys in booster development, is any of that true?”

The highlander woman nodded.“Well, yes. They say it’s something about combustion instability. There’s so much thrust coming out of each of the engine reactors, and there’s _five_ of them on the first stage, so – “

“See,” Tiona said between bites of bird, “that’s why I signed up just to _ride_ it. That way I don’t need to worry. They’re being awfully stingy about letting us _control_ the craft, though –”

“I keep thinking _maybe_ we don’t have the full picture,” Synnove admitted, “but they brought the Ironworks in on this. How are they struggling with _this_ kind of simple problem?”

“I’m not smart enough to figure that out,” Tiona admitted. “I’d just like to _fly_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Draya whose standing permission to use her characters comes in handy a lot.


	12. Tooth and Nail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keltgeim doesn't want to go to Coerthas, but Urianger would REALLY like to use the big astroscope.

“I ain’t goin’ to Coerthas.” Keltgeim was leaning over one end of the conference table in the basement of the adventuring hall, her hands pressed against its surface while she _glared_ at Urianger, who was seated placidly at the other end.

Tiona was seated to one side, carefully reading some book about astrological creation theories that Keltgeim had found for her at a bookstore – it was, essentially, a primer on most of the _math_ she’d been proofreading for the past few sennights, the explanations distilled down to simpler language and more straightforward metaphor. She wasn’t really paying attention to the lively discussion taking place in front of her, though her ears, by their own nature, perked up and swiveled toward whoever was speaking at the time.

“I have _been_ in thine office,” Urianger was insisting, “and I _know_ thou art capable of securing astroscope time at the Observatorium–”

Tiona lowered her book. “You mean the First Dicasterial Observatorium of Aetherial and Astrological Phenomena?” She flashed a brilliant smile over at the elezen, who, for a brief moment, nodded and smiled right back at her with all the love in the universe in his gaze.

The moment was _immediately_ broken by Keltgeim smacking her hands on the tabletop and shaking her head; Tiona went back to her book and Urianger rearranged his face into something studious and serious and trained his eyes back on the roegadyn.

“I had to call in every conceivable favour t’get that time, and I _ain’t_ doin’ it again. Half the Athenaeum Astrologicum _probably_ wants t’string me up in town square for doin’ too much _heresy_ and the other half are total Sharlayan _kooks_ who’ll send a hit squad after me ‘cause they’re the types who like to pretend that the stars will tell ‘em what kinda tea t’have with their breakfast.”

“Is that _really_ a practical application?” Tiona was half-talking to herself as she touched her thumb to her lips, tongue peeking out to moisten it such that she could turn the next page and put the book back in front of her face.

Both Urianger and Keltgeim were united in their “ _No_ ,” and the discussion of a brief course of study in Coerthas and Ishgard, to which Keltgeim seemed obstinately opposed, continued.


	13. Part

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keltgeim won't pull strings to get Urianger some time on the astroscope, but Tiona will, at great risk to herself.

“Well,” Tiona said, bundled up in a warm coat, a scarf hiding most of her face as the winter winds at Camp Dragonhead bore down upon them, strong enough to counteract the natural lift in her ears and blowing them awkwardly to one side, “I got us to Coerthas.”

Urianger was similarly bundled up with a heavy woolen hat pulled down to his eyebrows (it was hand-knit, rolled up to just above his ears and had a jaunty grey pom-pom on its crown), but he was shaking his head at his rava companion. “The risks thou art taking – it bordereth on unconscionable.”

Ears flapping in the wind, she had to turn her entire body toward him to pick up what he was saying. “Oh, c’mon. I’ve gotten through primals and demigods and ancient entities – I think I can handle this.” She waved a mittened hand in his direction.

Urianger looked entirely unconvinced. Since their arrival he had been holding his arms around his chest and had been regarding Tiona with severely furrowed brows, pacing both out of mild anxiety and out of the need to keep himself warm. “Ere we departed thou didst leave an ‘out of order’ sign on the yard astroscope.”

Tiona’s scarf slipped from her face, and she idly began to see if she could make smoke rings with the vapour from her breath. “Right.”

“The reason for this doth be because thou hath somehow broken some part of its mechanisms.” Some snow from a nearby gutter was blown straight into his face and for a second he sputtered and temporarily doffed his hat to shake the powder out of it, putting it back on with a frown.

“Correct.” The rava nodded and immediately capitalized upon his arms _finally_ unfolding and took hold of his hand, leading him toward the chocobo porter stand.

Urianger allowed himself to be dragged toward the gate, but kept speaking, his tone becoming increasingly incredulous: “Whereupon we immediately vacated the premises and took an aetheryte to _Coerthas_.”

Tiona quietly purchased a pair of tickets for southbound travel as their conversation continued, and once she had them in hand she faced Urianger again, tilting her head to one side and holding one out toward the elezen. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a brilliant man?”

He took the ticket. She was very carefree and energetic, despite the dire situation. “Thou mayest not _survive_ upon our arrival back in Ul’dah.” If Keltgeim happened upon the astroscope while they were gone, he worried that Tiona may find herself evicted or _dead_. 

For all the questioning he tended to do as they studied together in the adventurers’ hall, all the pushing-back and being a contrarian in the name of scientific rigour, the more he learned from Keltgeim, the more he realized the dour roegadyn woman was something of mad genius. 

Mad geniuses, as he well knew, were swift and thorough in their retribution.

“Nah, we’re going to get it fixed at the Observatorium.”

“Why there?”

“Because,” she said, bouncing on her feet, face spreading into a smile, “there’s something _else_ for us there.” Reaching into her coat, she rooted around inside it for a few seconds before producing a letter, which she handed over to him.

“This is –” His eyes went wide as he broke the seal and pulled out a slip of parchment, the elegant letterhead of the Athenaeum Astrologicum embossed in gold leaf reflecting the white of the nearby snowbanks. It was ostentatious, glittery, and, he noted, _not_ signed off by the Lord Commander, but it allowed for – 

“Six hours of astroscope time. All yours. I had to deliberately break the one in our yard to make the case with Jannequinard that you needed it, but all that I broke was the declination lever, and that’s easy to fix. It’s a simple welding job that I can do in the Observatorium yard.”

Their carriage arrived and Tiona immediately moved to get _inside_ its warmed interior, not bothering to wait for a response, and Urianger hurriedly followed.

He settled himself down beside her, his frown slowly smoothing out to be replaced by an excited grin. “But… wherefore wouldst thou do such a thing?” His elegantly gloved hand reached around her mitten and he squeezed her hand through the many layers of fabric.

“Because I like danger and love you,” she said simply, as the carriage bore them south.


	14. Ache (NSFW)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tiona is a klutz.

As always, Tiona woke with the sun.

For the most part, it was typical: her eyes opened and she faced the new day face-down in bed, with her hair sticking up in odd places and an undignified smear of drool on both her face and her pillow. Somewhere in the night she must have cast off the blankets; she was laying there nude and slightly chilly–

Of course, Urianger was sound asleep beside her, flat on his back, burrowed in the blankets and snoring lightly, devoid of drool and bed-head and a perfect, statuesque depiction of _peace_. He was not as much of a morning person as she was, and she was not wont to stay in bed and stare at the ceiling and wait the hour or two for him to come out of his slumber, so typically she would wake, poke her head around to see if Hydaelyn’s Grumpiest Duskwight was interested in joining her for a morning jog around their neighbourhood, see to that, and be back at the adventurers’ hall in time for breakfast.

The intention was to have a _normal_ day, and as Tiona rose from her drooled-upon pillow, she went to swing her legs out of bed and hit the ground running, so to speak –

– only to find that her thighs were aching.

They hadn’t gone _that_ hard at it the previous night, she mused. Maybe it was because she’d gotten greedy and had put one foot up on the headboard while she’d sat on Urianger’s face, but she was awfully fit and flexible for a one-hundred-seventy-five-year-old viera. And despite his reputation as a bookish man, he was strong enough to hold her in place throughout. It had all been a decent round of filthy, pleasurable _fun_ , but nothing too strenuous to warrant this – 

She let out a groan, remembering that the session had abruptly ended when his arms had given out after she'd come twice, and he’d gotten _winded_ and she’d almost fallen off the _bed_ after bouncing off of his torso and they both ended up laughing so hard and so loudly about it that someone had hammered on their room door and shouted at them to keep it down.

It was probably Moni. She was, after all, Hydaelyn’s Grumpiest Duskwight.

The aggravating ache bothered her to the point where all she could do was hobble over to the wardrobe to fetch her dressing-robe. As she reached for it she felt _something_ pull in her back, and she was caught so off-guard by the sensation that she flinched, turning to brace hands around the angry muscle. 

In doing so, she swung her foot about and caught it on the corner of the wardrobe, and what dignity she had left after doing a shameful, hobbled walk that was the result of bedroom escapades evaporated with the painful shock of a stubbed toe. And she swore, loudly, falling to the floor with a thud, the dressing-robe flying about to be left tented on her ears.

_“Moss-eating arsehelmed weevil-fuckers!”_

And Urianger did not wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to VicTheSpookyGoat, with whom I also have a standing agreement to freely use/namedrop their characters.


	15. Lucubration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A haiku about a certain elezen and his billion-gil vocabulary.

words stand as your wealth

to overindulge in them

shall show you are rich


	16. Fade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tiona, too, is long-lived, and muses on how difficult it can be over time to remember.

In a way, Tiona could very much empathize with the Ancients.

Here she was, a present-day creature with a longer lifespan than most of her counterparts, who got knocked upside the head at the same time that the moon bumped into Eorzea, and was now struggling to remember a century-and-a-half spent in Dalmasca.

She remembered the smells and sounds; she remembered how to make curry and track a route amongst the trees. She remembered leaving the jungle to go and fight alongside the city-dwellers (and how that decision was _final_ and not something she could walk back from); and she remembered Vibeka –

(She would never forget Vibeka, even if she couldn’t remember when it was that they’d made love for the last time, and even if she could only just recall watching her former lover’s _death_. It was not at the hands of Garlemald, even if they enabled the circumstances that led to it. It was no outside force that had taken Vibeka from her arms; rather, it was their fellow Dalmascans, mired in petty arguments to the detriment of the nation)

Tiona could _not_ remember how she’d ended up fleeing in _just_ the right direction such that some kind soul brought her to an Eorzean Alliance army camp. She remembered that it was where she’d recovered from her concussion with few ill effects, but not much beyond that. (Perhaps this inability to remember _was_ an ill effect of her injury, or perhaps it was because so much had _happened_ in such a short time.)

Traveling on the First had expanded her worldview; a century ago the jungle was the whole universe. Five years ago, Hydaelyn was the whole universe. 

And now – she saw the universe for what it was.

Now it was like there were parts of her whole life that were becoming irrelevant in retrospect, becoming things that were fated to fade away.

After all, in the face of the infinity of space and the infinity of time, the goings-on of a large-eared Viera on one star in the middle of all of it seem trite by comparison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the phrase "the infinity of space and the infinity of time" comes from an interview where I believe that Gene Cernan, the last dude to walk on the moon, is describing the blackness of deep space. (it's on the For All Mankind documentary)
> 
> it's stuck with me for decades.


	17. Panglossian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quote from a hero.

“We don’t do what we do – saving worlds and all that – because we think we’re innately a force of good or because we feel our way is best. We do it because we believe it the right thing to do. We believe – I believe – that we all have a right to exist. 

“If we’re going to be tools for someone’s agenda, let us at least be principled. Let us come at it from, I dunno, a place of love. Hope. Optimism. I’ve spent too long killing in the name of people who only want hate, and strife, and whatever-the-opposite-of-optimism is. Maybe I want to be hopeful, loving, and optimistic. I feel like that’ll change the world more than just the might of my friends and I ever could.”

_\-- Tiona Eryut, Warrior of Light_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written on September 18, 2020. The day my adopted country lost one of its biggest champions. Featuring a reference to a quote from one of my home country's biggest champions, who left us behind too soon.
> 
> Normally I am loathe to let real life leak into the fiction, but on September 18, 2020, I just couldn't.


	18. Where The Heart Is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shadowbringers/5.3 Spoilers - Tiona finally has a place that is special to her, but now it lacks the most special thing of all.

It’s a beautiful day in Il Mheg, and Tiona Eryut is crying.

She does her best to hide it, with casual swipes of the heel of her gloved hand against the corner of her eyes, but her twitching nose is out of control twice over from the scent of the flowers and the undignified sniffling that just gets worse the further along the path leading north away from Lydha Lran she travels.

She’s walking up a path that she realizes (and this brings on another fresh round of stuttering, half-disguised sobs) she has never tread alone before.

After leaving Golmore Jungle at just around seventy years old, and until now, Tiona didn’t put much stock in _places_. The life of an active soldier and later of a Resistance member did not allow for such sentimentalities, and the habit has carried forward into her new life. When she thinks about it, she realizes that even after fleeing Dalmasca and taking her injurious route to Eorzea, she did not become attached to Limsa Lominsa (and honestly, the pride regarding the harbour city still strikes her as a bit...odd), or Vesper Bay, or Mor Dhona, or Ishgard or the Azim Steppe –

But then there is Il Mheg. A place decoupled from everywhere she has lived before, with its pink meadows and spherical rainbows and beavers, where she had found her best friend on two whole worlds after an alarmingly long amount of time apart. A pleasant-smelling wilderness that she associates with said friend, who is still her friend but is now something _more_ , something wonderful and a little unreal. A place of respite where love had bloomed just as readily as the flowers on the hills, and where it was tended just as the pixies pruned and trimmed their leafmen.

For the first time in a century Tiona has a place she feels sentimental about. A place of fond memories: of pretending to hate tea only to dissolve into breathless laughter once fae creatures bribed to prepare it were out of earshot; of slow and languid nights and the man who was now something _more_ ever-present above and around and inside her; of passionate, unyielding hope in a future that was not promised and yet so highly desired.

There was only one thing – one _person –_ missing from it all. She reaches the top of the rise where the stately cottage of the Bookman’s Shelves can be seen and stops, sinking to the ground with a fresh wave of tears pricking at her eyes.

She does not understand why coming back here hurts her so much. Nothing is out of place, and nobody is dead. In a manner of minutes she can ride aether and walk through a portal and Urianger will be _there_ , on the other side, chuckling at her irreverent sense of humour, all smart-assed and beautiful and alive and _hers_.

Perhaps, she realizes, as she wills herself to keep walking _past_ the stately little cottage where so much had been lovingly put into place in the brief snatches of free time that sometimes sprouted between the mad-dashes into world-saving shenanigans, she wants to come back here with _him_ and walk hand-in-hand, as they used to when they were just getting started. When the weight of inevitability drove them forward in their relationship, this was their _home_ , their little safe spot in the layers of chaos that gripped the whole of Norvrandt at the time.

She wants to sit in the meadow with him again, wants to look at the shifted stars in the sky with him again, wants to tell him that she brought him back to where it all started – so that she can impress upon him that what they grew here would last for the rest of their lives if he wanted it to.

Part of her heart lives here. And part of his, too.

Only she is fortunate enough to be able to pay it a visit.


	19. Foibles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tiona wants to tell Urianger something weird during exam week.

“D’you want to hear something weird?”

They had commandeered the smartly-constructed wooden deck that had been constructed adjacent to the front door of the adventuring hall, ostensibly for residents to eat meals and take tea outside in the typically-warm Ul’dahn weather. And while there were an assortment of snack platters and a large pot of green tea on the table, most of it was covered in books and study materials. Whatever Keltgeim had set for a midterm for both Tiona and Urianger was fast approaching, and the two of them had been poring over their notes for the past few bells.

“Hmm?” Urianger made a distracted, inquisitive noise, but didn’t otherwise look up from his flashcards.

Tiona had a star-chart spread open across her knees as she sat cross-legged in the chair opposite him. “Anyone ever told you that you speak the way Dalmascans do?” She looked up and offered him a broad grin before sticking her tongue out at him playfully.

“I … such a statement maketh little sense. Tis not a language I am any way fluent in.” For whatever reason, the elezen was blushing slightly, a brief rosiness across his cheeks and into the tips of his ears.

“That’s what I mean. That right there. The cadence and _order_ of your words, how you put the sentence together. It’s how we’d speak back home. It’s also why you were the easiest person to understand, when I first got here.”

“Thou art truly the first person ever to make such a claim, my bright star. Art thou seeking once more to merely flatter me?” Despite his blush, there was an amused twinkle in his eye, and briefly, just briefly, he stuck his tongue back out at her.

“Am not! It’s the truth,” Tiona insisted. “And your wordiness aside, your... is it pronunciation, or enunciation? You speak clearly.”

“Enunciation.” He was still blushing, but was looking into her eyes from across the table, adoration clearly written in his golden gaze. There were a few seconds of silence from him, as though he didn’t quite know how to take Tiona’s compliment. “And...I thank thee.”

“Aye, that. Plus, you took pity on poor, illiterate me, and now look. D’you think she’ll give me a degree for all this stargazing?” Tiona straightened her back, ears pitched forward, making a show of looking exceptionally pleased with herself.

That had Urianger laughing out loud. “If she intendeth such for thee, I pray I receive a _doctorate_.”

“All that calculus has _nothing_ to do with being a chirurgeon, though.”

He stared a touch owlishly at her. “That is not –”

Before he could launch into an explanation, Tiona dissolved into giggles, waving a hand to call him off. “I know what a doctorate is, smart-ass.” From literally anyone else, calling him such would be viewed as an insult, but there was a certain degree of playful affection in her voice. “I know. And she should give you one.”


	20. Argy-bargy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haiku. The astrologians are arguing once more.

here they go again

heads so far up their asses

the stars are hidden


	21. Shuffle (NSFW)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW. Urianger elects to have the other kind of dessert by way of stress relief.

The cards were still _new_. They had to have been a freshly-printed set from Ishgard, Urianger mused; they were flawless and slippery and absolutely _terrible_ to handle for much other than party tricks.

He’d taken to _over-_ handling them, in an attempt to speed up the natural process of wear that, in time, would darken their edges and render them flexible – bending the deck as a whole to and fro in his hands during idle moments, or outright shuffling them: a flick of his thumb and the deck was cut, then each half intertwined and brought up into a bridge before finally being shuffled together. He would repeat the process innumerable times, but perhaps at present he was a touch too impatient – they were still new, with their smell of fresh cardstock and ink, still sliding all over the place in a way he didn’t like; in a manner that would not do in the field.

Yet, it was still a process, and he found himself doing it again one evening, lounging on the couch with Tiona after a loud and raucous dinner in the adventuring hall (he’d spent most of the time during dessert trying to sneak bits of apple cobbler under the table to one of the myriad of carbuncles that tended to wander about of their own accord – this was the emerald one, who’d spent most of the meal determinedly headbutting his knees and positively chattering up a storm; he’d spent enough time in the house to know that the normally dignified creature was _begging_ for a treat. Or two. Or three. He’d lost count of how _much_ apple cobbler he’d fed the thing until he’d looked up and around and saw Synnove across from him, eyebrow quirked and a knowing look on her face. He’d stopped after that, as though he was needlessly fattening up an aetheric construct.). 

His thoughts were wandering; they dwelled on the fact that he had met an entirely new group of people who seemed to accept his presence regardless of his prowess in either academic pursuits or battle, and on how refreshing it was that he had no pressing matters at present apart from continuing his studies. There was nothing to prove here, but plenty to learn and see at witness. He had spent so long in _books_ that there was a certain wonder in the mundanities of life these days: amusement in the carbuncle begging for a treat, delight in the late-night baking sessions that happened a few times a sennight (he was not much of a culinarian – perhaps _too_ typically that was Tiona’s domain – but he did enjoy baking a cookie every now and then).

The cadence of his shuffling grew more and more rapid, as though he were doing it by reflex, and just as he’d pondered his lover, she made her presence known as one of Tiona’s ears swiveled to brush against his. Caught off-guard, he ceased his movements and turned to look at her. She had her head tilted down, staring at his hands, nose twitching and lips parted. She had been _marvelous_ throughout this endeavour, tolerating the academic tension and staying at his side. Her adventurousness and sensuality tended to fill his downtime, and she was so adept at recognizing when he was starting to stress himself out – 

“Are you looking for something to do with your hands?” she inquired softly, shifting almost imperceptibly to be closer to him. He noticed she was flushed in the face; a dark ruddiness in her cheeks that rendered the clan tattoos framing her eyes nearly imperceptible against her brown skin. All at once his mouth turned dry. Tiona had picked up on his fussiness once again, and laid a hand across his chest. She kept her claws short and square but the sensation they evoked seemed to take him out of his own mind. 

He was a man who was prone to getting lost there. And she would always find him. She was a fixed point, the brightest star in the sky by which he could always navigate a way back to the moment.

“Dost thou hope that I do something _else_ with them?” He set the cards down on the nearby end table and leaned in to rub his cheek along the offending ear, smiling broadly as it elicited a slight growl from the back of her throat.

“Well, I wouldn’t mind.” She glanced up at him, and had it been anyone else, it would have come across as demure and embarrassed, but Urianger knew that Tiona found little shame in asking for what she wanted, and the sly smile that was growing across her face simply drove that point home.

“Here?” He cast a glance around the basement; it was abandoned and all the lights upstairs had been dimmed – it appeared that most of the residents had retired for the night, but there was a chance, however slight, that someone might happen upon them. Once upon a time he may have found the potential to be an embarrassing thing, but now he found it thrilling to, if only this one time, behave like a handsy teenager.

Tiona’s laughter was soft, breathy, and she moved closer still. “...aye. Here. If you’re concerned about getting _caught_ , then I suppose you’ll have to be quick about it.”

It _still_ was thrilling, the way she didn’t exactly care about privacy, but still found ways to maintain a certain level of discretion. Moreover, the budding realization that there was a part of him that _wanted_ to be somewhere where he might be caught grounding himself in Tiona’s steadying, radiant presence. Every time it was as though he was realigning himself within the universe.

The constant fussing with the cards had left his fingers nimble; in the span of a few seconds he’d pulled her into his lap such that she was straddling him, he’d undone the buttons holding her trousers closed, and –

– then she was above him, hips lifted up just an ilm or two to give him access, hands on his shoulders and squeezing tightly as she leaned her head down and rested her forehead against his. She was like a switch, at times, able to go from contemplative, affectionate silence to _this_ , where his long fingers were venturing down her front ( _no smallclothes again_ , Urianger realized, wondering if she’d always foregone them if not adventuring), parting hair and lips to find her, warm and wet. He curled around her, two fingers plunging as deeply as the odd angle could manage, and his thumb resting against her clit.

The rava moaned softly, rocking gently against his hand, and he was almost _undone_ by it. Tiona’s warm, comforting presence was a needed thing for him and that alone would have been enough, yet she continually offered him _herself_ , and merely by virtue of his existence he found himself delighting in the eroticism of it all. 

His mouth ran a little dry again, but he cleared his throat, and did not _dare_ still his hands again, not when the task they were set to was of such import. “Given thy state, it should not be a lengthy endeavour, if thou dost not wish it so.”

“Honestly,” every word was whispered, every other breath a moan and she kept _rocking_ , slowly but with purpose, “ – was watching you. Your hands. With the cards, and I could tell you were nervous and I just _needed –”_

“Thou hast either an affinity for cards, or for the man who holds them.” Tiona’s instant readiness, her lack of hesitation, her _arousal_ , sent levin straight down his spine but it was her insistence on _need_ that had him growing hard under his robes. The baser part of himself was shouting at him to just give her his prick, already, but that was not what she _needed_. A playful smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he sat up straighter, angled his wrist to go _deeper_ within her. Harder. “Pray, tell me which it is.”

Teeth dug into her bottom lip, she let out what was likely meant to be a stifled moan but came out as an endearing tiny squeak. Her hips rocked forward to meet him, just as intense in turn. “Cards can’t _fuck_ me like this,” she insisted. “Only you.”

Eyes widening, he found his breath shallowing out, quickening. The affirmation was just as arousing as the velvety sensation of her cunt around his fingers. His hand was soaked as he continued on and she was panting, clinging to him as though it was the only thing keeping her upright. “That is because thou allowest it of me, my most bright star, and I am ever grateful.”

“Gods, you keep talking like that and I’m going to come.” He could tell that she was not merely speaking for effect; her thighs were trembling and the rhythm of her rocking hips began to falter. 

“Is that not the point of the exercise, beloved?” Still smiling, he ducked his head so that he could kiss along her neck, grinding his thumb against her clit and feeling a small, possessive surge of victory when he felt her fall apart, cunt gripping at his fingers with that steely softness that he now always associated with her. A steely softness that was _his_.

“Ah, _fuck_ ,” she breathed once the maelstrom had passed and she had ground herself to a halt, sitting back on her haunches with his hand still down her trousers, grinning. “...you are _really_ good with your hands, you know that?”


End file.
